


The Saccharine Scent of Blossoms Fed on Blood

by Isidore



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lots of flowers, M/M, Pre-Canon, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Torture, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-01-19 01:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12399960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isidore/pseuds/Isidore
Summary: Unrequited love blooms in the flesh of the pining.'Every moment, every syllable that sounds crushed velvet between Keith’s teeth, Shiro falls deeper and deeper in agony. The itch has spread up his arm, and he’s relieved he wore long sleeves tonight. When he excuses himself for a minute to roll up his sleeves, he sees it. Tiny white blossoms press through his skin, he can feel their thin roots winding through him, brushing against nerves and winding around veins. He plucks one, pulls it by its roots from the inside of his arm and a trickle of bright blood drips onto the floor.'Keith burns while Shiro blooms.





	1. Shiro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sammytrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammytrash/gifts).



> So, this is my first Voltron fic and it just took hold of me, I wrote the first chapter in just a few hours. My friend looked over it quickly before I posted here, but apart from that any and all are my mistakes.
> 
> Please comment, let me know what you think, I love to hear from readers!
> 
> Enjoy!

****Shiro has always been a sucker for broken things.

As a kid he would work with his hands, glue together, stitch up, make whole. He would look up at the stars, and before he knew what they were, he thought they were shattered pieces of the sun, suspended in the void above his head.

He was drawn to Keith right away. At first it was the brokenness, the rough around the edges, the hardened heart, the uncontrollable temper. He saw a broken thing, a scared, bruised being who didn’t know how to behave, how to be patient or kind or loved.

He never quite figured out why Keith let him in. But soon enough, Shiro is Keith’s bridge to the world. Everyone loves Shiro, no-one loves Keith, they balance each other out. He teaches Keith to fight, he teaches Keith how to not fight. He rounds Keith’s sharp edges, softens his hard heart, tempers that uncontrollable temper. And as he slowly puts Keith together, Keith begins to tear him apart.

The first time, the very first time is sparring.

Keith moves a live wire, there’s electricity in his every step, every touch of his fingers against Shiro burns. He strikes like lightning, fast and hard, his fist comes swinging out of nowhere, and Shiro only just manages to duck. Then he’s on him, sweeping Shiro’s legs out from under him. Shiro rolls into the fall and lands crouched a few feet away from Keith, panting heavily. They’ve been training for hours now, and even though the fights still tend in Shiro’s favour, he’s worn out. It’s only takes a few more agile moves for Keith to floor him again, and they begin grappling, legs tangled. Keith manages to pin Shiro’s hand behind his back, pinned against the mat. A confusing warmth pools in Shiro’s stomach. He flops backwards onto the mat, relieved when Keith lets go of him.

He stares up at Keith as the younger man pulls the tie from his hair, letting it flop in silky strands around his face. He looks for signs of weariness, pain from an injury, searching for the telltale markers, too used to Keith hiding weakness. All he finds is happiness, blazing like fire across his expression.

“Another to me.” Keith says, his voice impassive, and it almost manages to hide the quirk of his mouth.

He watches Keith’s slender curving lips, and the sudden image them bruised and reddened by kisses surges in front of his eyes. He very deliberately presses his fingernails into his palm, scoring shallow crescent impressions. Keith stands up, offers his hand and pulls Shiro to his feet with a strong grip. There’s a scratching at the back of Shiro’s throat.

He _wants_ Keith, wants tangle his fingers through that long hair, pull him into a crushing, scorching kiss. He wants to hug Keith, hold Keith, make his demons go away. He wants to fight Keith, fight with Keith, conquer the universe side by side. He wants everything Keith has to give him, wants to give Keith everything he is.

He _wants_.

And it suddenly seems so _obvious_ , so simple, so right.

“Well played.” Shiro says genuinely, but it comes out strained and rough with emotion.

Later that night, alone in his rooms, he thinks of Keith again. Of bruised lips and sweat slicked muscles, and there’s that scratching, tickling at the back of his throat. He coughs harshly and a single haematic petal flutters from his mouth. He looks at it for a long time before he goes to sleep. He dreams of roses and agile gloved hands.

He goes to the library in the morning, scrolling through holos of old documents, cleanly lined drawings of anemones, carnations, honeysuckle, hyacinth. He sees the images, anatomically questionable lungs, macerated skulls, warped spines. 

He know what it means, knows what it all means. Of course he knows. His mother told this story in crooning solemn tones when he was a child. It was a curse, a medical mystery, the bogey man of unrequited love.

He just never thought it would be _him_.

The next day he stays away from Keith, even though every second of doing so causes him pain, even though he knows it’s a hopeless, futile exercise. He does his duty with a firmly blank face, hides the trembling in his hands, thinks desperately of anything other than that sable hair and those dark violet-grey eyes.

He thinks of flowers blooming, of the unfurling of rich pale petals, of stems and leaves and roots.

Keith doesn’t come looking for him, which is perhaps the worst of the pain.

It’s three days, three miserable days before he sees Keith again, and he can _feel_ petals coating his lungs. He can feel a garden twisting inside of him.

Keith looks up at him and Shiro can _see_ the anger shimmering beneath his surface. There is a long minute of silence.

“I see you’ve deigned to join me.” It’s funny how a person that epitomises fire can act so much like ice.

“Keith…” He says sadly. “I’m sorry, I’ve been—“

“I don’t want to hear it.” Keith gestures impatiently to the empty seat next to him. 

And there’s that warmth, that ridiculous, sappy, vulnerable flood of feeling that leaves him reeling. He goes to sit, when he’s wracked with a sudden fit of coughing. When he removes his hand from his mouth, he’s clutching a rainbow of petals that feel all to silky in his calloused hands.

Keith’s on his feet, and his face shifts suddenly through a kaleidoscope of emotions, and for an instant, Shiro wonders if the rest of the world can read Keith like he does. The mere idea makes him want to crush Keith in his arms, makes him want to murder anyone who even looked at _his_ —

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“It’s nothing.” Shiro says, and the automatic shuttering of Keith’s expression hurts more than he expects.

Keith just stands there for a moment and makes an aborted movement, as if to reach out. “Good.” He ends up saying.

Shiro watches him carefully, watches the defensive look glancing off him, those deep heliotropic eyes guarded by long inky eyelashes. “I’m going to lunch.” The words are impulsive, a heartbreaking olive branch extended to the source of his greatest torture. “Come with me.”

It’s when he’s on the back of Keith’s crimson hoverbike, Keith’s waist hot beneath his palms, that he realises.

This torture is bliss. Addictive, pining, burning bliss. _And he doesn’t want it to stop_.

They eat together and he watches the lines of Keith’s throat move and he can feel an itch beneath the skin of his forearm. He tells Keith about his day and slowly extracts information from him with gentle teasing words and carefully put challenges.

Every moment, every syllable that sounds crushed velvet between Keith’s teeth, he falls deeper and deeper in agony. The itch has spread up his arm, and he’s relieved he wore long sleeves tonight. When he excuses himself for a minute to roll up his sleeves, he sees it. Tiny white blossoms press through his skin, he can feel their thin roots winding through him, brushing against nerves and winding around veins. He plucks one, pulls it by its roots from the inside of his arm and a trickle of bright blood drips onto the floor.

He smiles despairingly. It seems right, that such a pure thing would be the one to kill him and of the people he could have gave his heart to, he is glad it’s Keith.

“Shiro?” Keith’s voice comes from behind him. “Who is she?” His voice, once velvet, is like shards of glass laced with fire.

He turns and petals peel off his form, floating weakly to the ground. There’s something like betrayal in Keith’s expression and he shifts his feet through the trail of decimated blossoms.

“Actually don’t tell me. Who ever she is, she’s killing you.” His voice, impossibly, grows harder. Shiro notices a pink petal tangled in the black strands of Keith’s hair, but he can’t bring himself to say anything.

“It’s not like that, Keith.” Shiro says breathily. “It’s not…”

“ _I. Don’t. Care_.” Keith says stiltedly. “Just… Please. Don’t let her kill you.”

That warmth grows in Shiro’s stomach. _If only…_ But he’s resigned to his fate. “I won’t.” He lies. “It won’t.”

They don’t talk on the ride back, but Shiro yearns to say something, to reach out and break through the walls he can feel Keith putting up. He watches longingly as Keith pulls of his helmet and ruffles his long silky hair.

A fully formed lily tears through the skin of his calf.

He limps back to his room.

The next day he watches Keith in the simulators, scratching at his thighs as Keith, with a deft and risky move, breaks one of Shiro’s records. No-one cheers as Keith slides out of the simulator. Whispers fly through the room and Keith glances up to the observation window where he stands. Shiro sees dark shadows beneath his long lashes.

That evening, when he wanders over to the training room, he finds Keith, sweat glistening along his cheekbones, his hair tied back into a rough ponytail. He’s pounding at a punching bag, hands unwrapped and visibly bloody.

Forget-me-nots bloom excruciatingly along Shiro’s collarbone.

“Keith.” He calls and the younger man stills instantly, head whipping around.

“Shiro.” Keith replies, and drops his fists. Blood runs between his knuckles, wraps around his fingers. He wears gloves of red. 

“Keith, your hands.” Shiro says and reaches for them, a scraping at the back of his throat.

“They’re fine.” Keith says, but walks over to the first-aid station attached to the side of training room and pulls out a roll of bandages, and he seems so _Keith_ in that moment, Shiro feels an agonising rush of affection. A vine twists it’s way up Shiro’s thigh and he smells honeysuckle, rich and cloying.

Keith winds it around his knuckles tightly, the white of the bandage blushing pink. “Spar with me.” He says, like it’s not a big deal, like it isn’t the first time he’s asked in months, those long months.

Shirt’s body shudders with coughs at the thought, petals spilling from between his lips, knees giving out from under him. _Is this it?_ Seems such an insignificant thing to finish him off. 

Keith is at his side, hands all over him, breath hot against his bare skin. “Shiro.” He says, and that can’t be desperation in his voice. “ _Shiro_.”

He lets his breathing slow, supporting himself on his forearms. He imagines his lungs for a moment, flowers like alveoli, their forms delicate and silken and macabre. The roots wrapping around his spinal cords, tendril weaving vertebrae. His vision is flickering, and his limbs feel weak. There’s the stench of nectar in the air.

_Is this it?_

The pain has never felt this bad, he can feel the bouquet inside of him pushing to get out.

He straightens slowly to look Keith in the eye. “When I’m gone…” _If I’m going…_

“Shut up.” Keith snaps.

“ _Listen_ to me, Keith. When I’m gone, you have to finish your training. Become a pilot—“ 

“Takashi, you shut your mouth.” Keith hisses, and his eyes look too bright. 

“You have the potential to be the best of us, Keith. Promise me you won’t waste it.” _Do me proud Keith._

“Who is doing this to you Shiro, I _swear_ —“

“Promise me, Keith.” He says insistently. His focus is dimming and it’s getting harder to breath with thistles clogging his throat.

“Promise me you’re _not going to die_.” Keith snarls. “You promise that, _then_ I’ll promise you.”

He wants to stay quiet, can’t bear to put the burden of his agony on Keith’s weighted shoulders, but the compulsion to confess, to declare, to finally say out loud what he’s meant to say for months tears the words out of his mouth.

“You.”

“Shut up.” Keith says, and his hands suddenly disappear, and Shiro wants to cry out with the loss. Then he’s back and there’s something gleaming in his hands, and those _fucking_ petals are in his hair, and Shiro needs to speak, needs to breathe, needs to _kiss_ —

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Shiro wakes, he doesn’t smell ~~death~~ flowers.

When Shiro wakes the sun is low in the sky outside his windows, the sheet is tucked tight around his body and there’s a tube in his throat.

When Shiro wakes, he can see the stars faint in the sky, and he thinks — _shattered_. And he wants to cry.

The hospital releases him with a clean bill of health, he walks to his rooms without gasping for air, and there’s a foreboding feeling in his gut.

When he can’t find Keith anywhere, he returns to the library, and with only the scars left to remind him of the flowers budding through his skin, he feels calm, resigned, for the first time in months. There’s no more itching, no more burning, but the love is still there. Whatever happened, he can’t undo it now.

He looks through the holos again, and there’s an bittersweet attachment to the stories this time around. He lived through this. He survived this. He knows the suffocation of petals, the saccharine scent of blossoms fed on his own blood.  

What he finds seems inevitable. When he reads it, printed like that, attached to the end of his own death sentence, it seems inexorable.

 _You or me, huh, darling?_ He thinks despairingly. _Life for a life. Perfect, unavoidable irony._

So when he gets back to his rooms, and there Keith stands, as perfect and flawed as always, his eyes darkened and turbulent, the first thing Shiro can think to say is.

“I thought you were dead.”

Keith doesn’t answer, not immediately, but he stands there, arms crossed with this devastating look on his face for a long time. 

“How?” Shiro asks, and his mind is a mess of _want_.

“You didn’t think to _tell me_.” Keith says softly.

Shiro drops onto his couch, emotional exhaustion crippling him. “I’m sorry.”

“Shut up.” Keith says, and _is that fondness_? “You didn’t think to mention it? To tell me before you were _fucking dying_?”

“Tell you what, Keith?” Shiro says carefully.

“Tell me that you were _fucking_ _in love with me_ and it was _fucking killing you_.”

“It didn’t seem important.” Shiro smiles weakly at his attempt of a joke.

“ _Shut up_.” Then Keith’s standing too close and his fingers are pressed against Shiro’s chest and his mouth scorches. Keith kisses like he fights, rough and passionate and impulsive and surprisingly skilled. Shiro presses his hands to Keith’s waist, kisses back, fights back, gives back and together they _burn._


	2. Keith

Keith never forgets the illness. How could he? He’d spent months watching Shiro torn apart by blossoms, months watching him grow pale from blood loss. He hates it, with every fibre of his being, hates that it’s the thing that brought them together, hates that the beauty of it hides the devastation of it’s consequences.

It’s five months into the Kerberos mission when the pale pink anemone sprouts in Keith’s palm.

It unfolds itself overnight, perfectly formed with flawless soft petals and a bright yellow centre. Keith  knows what it means. He sets it alight. Lets it burn itself right to where the stalk meets his palm, watches as the ashes swirl around him.

So he knows before the rest of the world, he knows that something has gone wrong. And it’s easier to believe that Shiro is dead, to believe that Keith has an eternity left of loving a dead man, a man who will never love him again, then it is to think that Shiro is still alive but…

Shiro _must_ be dead.

When the news breaks across the Garrison, the stares start afresh, the taunts start afresh and the first words out of everyone lips are: _Who would’ve guessed? Takashi Shirogane. The golden boy screwed up._ Like they didn’t worship the ground he’d walked on. Like they didn’t believe that he was the best graduate of the Garrison in the past fifty years.

And all he wants to do is tear the roots from his skin, rip the flowers to shreds, fuck up their faces with a well placed fist.

Fuck what Shiro would have said.

_Shiro is fucking dead._

Pilot error. That’s what they keep saying. The words hurt every single time they’re repeated, and they are repeated over and _over_. The official report is in the news for a long time. Instructors start to run the Kerberos Mission as a simulation, they try again and again to get Keith to fly the mission, prove to the world that it wasn’t the equipment or the training, that it was just Shiro.

Keith tells them to go fuck themselves.

They tell him he’s the best they’ve got.

He tells them that’s not a compliment.

It takes a long time before he roams far enough over the line for them to expel him. Even then they give him an honourable discharge, pretend they can’t see the green shoots pushing up from under his fingernails, tell him he has a bright future.

He fucking hates them for it.

He packs everything he has into the storage panels of a Garrison’s hoverbike. He’s just about to leave when he hears a noise from behind him.

“You are going to get into so much shit for that.” 

“Hiya Katie.” He replies, not turning around.

“It’s Pidge, Keith, you know this.” There’s a weighty pause as Pidge watches him. “You’re really leaving, aren’t you?”

Keith goes to answer, but as he opens his mouth he’s struck by a coughing fit. He wretches purple perianths into his palm. _Fuck_. Slowly he wipes his mouth with the back of his palm and stuffs the flowers’ remnants into his pocket.

“You know I am.” He says hoarsely. He turns around to look at Pidge. She pushes the large round glasses up the bridge of her nose with a slender finger. Pidge is bony and freckled, looking particularly slight in dim light of the garage. 

“You have it.” Pidge’s voice is strained.

He doesn’t bother to answer Pidge, just pulls his hand from his pocket and lets the petals flutter to the floor like minute, delicate, crushed butterflies.

“They’re not dead, though. They can’t be dead.”

He almost swears he can see glimmering tears welling in her eyes, but it must be a trick of the light, because Pidge has always sworn that she does. Not. Cry.

“I got a hold of the footage.”

“You are going to get into so much shit for that.” He says mockingly.

Pidge ignores him, just steps forward insistingly, adjusting her glasses, swallowing visibly. “There is a glitch in the recording. They just disappear, there are no bodies. They can’t be dead.”

“And the alternative is better?” He snarls, his rage leaping from him suddenly like an unshackled beast. “That this—“ He pulls up his sleeve is a violent move, showing the bright blue veins beneath his paled skin and the bright red blossoms bursting from his arm. “—this is just a side effect of what, exactly?”

“Surely it’s better?” Pidge says desperately, and those are definitely tears in her eyes. “Them being alive has to be better?”

“Of course I want them to be alive.” He says, and it only partially feels like lying through his teeth. “Shiro and Matt and your father, I want them all to be alive. But either way…”

“What are you going to do, Keith?” Pidge asks haltingly. “Run away to die?”

“They expelled me. I can’t stay.”

“I want to come with you.”

“No.” He says firmly. “No, you don’t.” He almost reaches out to grab Pidge’s hands, almost breaks the boundaries he has set in a moment of weakness. “You want to find Matt, and you can only do that while you’re here.”

“Keith…” Pidge whispers.

“I have to go.” He says and he pulls down his sleeve with a yank. “See ya, Pidge.”

“Keith, I—”

“I know.”

The hoverbike starts up with a hum and Keith swings himself up into the seat. Pidge doesn’t try to stop him. The moon is bright overhead as he leaves the Garrison.

He spends three days wandering the desert before he finds the shack. It’s small and derelict, but he needs shelter.

It becomes home.

He fixes it up, builds furniture, scavenges and Frankensteins machinery into working hardware. Slowly as he spends longer and longer alone among the rocks and sands, as vines and tendrils of brightly coloured flowers sprout from his scalp, he feels the itch of energy. Of a power.

The desert is harsh on him. His skin dries and cracks, the moisture syphoned from his body by the heat and the roots that wind through his flesh. Every now and then, as he stares up into the galaxies that light the desert at night, as he looks up into the tapestry of the sky, he feels a wave of pain and longing and _love_ , and he’s double over by coughs and a pounding headache. He retches pollen and nectar and blood into the sand until his throat is raw and dry.

Even now, even light-years away, drifting dead in space, Shiro is killing him.

He’s racing across the desert sands, darting between boulders and columns of rock, when he feels the energy calling out to him. He hears a voice, sweet and mellow in the back of his head, and for a moment, it’s like his brain short-circuits. His grip loosens on the handles of his hoverbike and his vision whites out for a split second.

Then he’s falling, freed over the ragged edge of a cliff, flowers torn from him by gusts of wind, and the world is rushing around him in bursts of dry russet. He only just manages to push the thrusters to full at the last second, and his stomach drops—

The bike pulls up, inches from the ground, and he’s flying again, buzzing with adrenaline, and for the first time in months he feels alive.

He almost laughs at the irony. Almost.

He stops the speeder carefully, slides to the ground, and he’s never felt surer in his step, in his purpose. The energy, the voice, the power is calling him incessantly, crooning through his thoughts. He pulls a white scarf out of the storage panel and wraps it loosely around his head and mouth, the fabric soft against his skin. He starts walking, scarf flowing in the light breeze, trailing pale petals into the deep red sands of the desert.

He follows it call as it leads him deep into the dark, cool caves, and he lets the scarf slip from his head and crumple to the floor. He traces the odd, old carvings with careful inquisitive fingers, commits their shapes to memory. He can’t help but feel that it’s vital. That everything he does from now on is of great purpose.

And that’s something he hasn’t felt in a very long time.

He rides back to the shack humming with energy. The flowers burn bright against his skin.

Over the next months he goes back, traces patterns and symbols, sketches the cave system in a firm hand. His maps and drawings and theories and translations cover the walls, stories and prophesies congest his thoughts. The euphoria of the power consumes him, draws him back every day, and somehow, despite often forgetting to eat or drink, he’s never felt healthier in his life. The flowers are everywhere, and he pulls them from his skin often, leaking blood the colour of kermes. But they heal quickly and scarless, and he is no-longer plagued by headaches nor coughs up petals.

One night as he looks up at the constellations, he thinks of when the Kerberos mission left, of standing with Shiro of the tarmac, watching as Pidge and Matt hugged each other goodbye. He remembers the bittersweet weight in his chest. Shiro and Matt were living their dreams and he and Pidge were grounded, watching the people they love escaping to the stars. It was an odd sort of helplessness.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” Shiro had said, in his warm, rich voice. “I’ll miss you.”

He had smiled, with those beautiful pearly white teeth and Keith had wanted so badly to tell him, _I love you_. But the meanings attached to those words sent a tendril of terror curling in Keith’s gut. Those tiny words were a weakness, a gift that he’d never given before.

“Come back to me.” He’d said instead, and pulled Shiro close, resting his head against the taller man’s chest.

Shiro had curled his hand possessively around the back of Keith’s neck, had pressed a kiss into his hair, had said in that rough vulnerable voice he used only for Keith. “I promise.”

And Keith had believed him.

When he sees the meteor, the thing of molten flame and interminable speed, plummeting from the heavens like a disgraced angel, he knows it is time. This is the event prophesied, the lynchpin in the war to come, the moment he’s been waiting for. The energy in his mind is throbbing tonight, almost expectantly, and it fills his mind with words in strange languages and images of alien worlds, of unfamiliar architectures and foreign gods. He pushes it all to the side as he pulls the scarf over his mouth and tightens his grip on his hoverbike.

And then he sees him, sees the thing he came for, the person he was supposed to save, and it’s like the beginning and the end all at once. The name bursts out of him in a whisper.

“Shiro?”

Shiro lies strapped to a gurney, a scar twisting across his nose and a tuft of bright white hair tumbles over his forehead. It’s his Shiro and it’s not his Shiro and he’s not dead. A wave of pain and anger and _love_ floods through Keith. He feels the tearing right between his shoulder blades, feels the spilling of warm stickiness trickling down his back. The sickly sweet scent of budding flowers pours out of him, and he can’t help but feeling like throwing up and sobbing and bursting out laughing all at the same time. 

He does none of these things. He pulls the knife from the back of his belt, cut Shiro’s bonds and pulls the man over his shoulder, wraps his arm around Shiro’s waist, ignoring the pain burning through him. He tries not to cough.

“Nope. No, you - No, no, no. No, you don't.” Keith looks up, almost startled, to see a young man walking towards him, wagging his finger impatiently. Behind him, in the doorway, is another man in a dull yellow shirt and _Pidge_. He only just manages to keep himself from calling out her name. “I’m saving Shiro.” The younger man shoves the metal gurney aside and pulls Shiro’s other arm over his shoulder.

Keith can’t think with the pain, can’t think about Shiro, can’t focus with the energy tearing through his mind, wants to punch the guy in the face for even _touching_ Shiro. “Who are you?” He manages to make the words sound normal, passible.

“Who am I?” The guy manages to look offended, eyebrows creased dramatically. “Uh, the name's Lance. We were in the same class at the Garrison.”

Keith tries to remember, he really does. “Really? Are you an engineer?” 

“No, I'm a pilot! We were like rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck.” Lance says, and he sounds so intense, Keith almost laughs. Doesn’t he understand that none of that matters now?

“Oh, wait. I remember you. You're a cargo pilot.”

“Well, not anymore. I'm fighter class now, thanks to you washing out.” Lance snaps, and all Keith wants to do is leave, get the hell away from here and from Lance and Pidge and the big guy in the yellow shirt, and most of all Shiro.

“Well, congratulations.” He sighs, and that ends the conversation long enough for them to pull Shiro out to the hoverbike and pile themselves on. The rest of the evening is a blur of sand and rocks, of Pidge’s piercing screams and the wind in his hair and euphoria of the fall.

When he’s finally alone, with the cadets bickering amongst themselves in his main room, and Shiro unconscious in his bed, he locks himself in his bathroom and pulls off his shirt. Purple and red flowers cascade down his back, stemming from right between his shoulder blades, like wings of amaranthine petals. Dried blood is lumped at the base of his spine, and his skin is almost translucent.

Shiro’s not dead.

And what that means _terrifies_ Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, at first I didn't think I was going to write this, but here we are again. Thanks to my friend for pulling me up on some errors.
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments!


	3. Memories of Lost Things

When Shiro wakes, his head is fuzzy with memories, strange fleeting things that dart from one side of his head to the other, only leaving faint trails of colour. He knows where he is, innately. He can smell Keith in the sheets of the bed, can see the weapons littering the room, knows the style of the sketches covering the walls better than his own handwriting. He’s with Keith, and he’s safe.

It’s an odd, foreign feeling, safety. He can’t remember much between his capture and his rescue, but he remembers fear and pain and emptiness.

He flexes his prosthetic arm carefully. It scares him how comfortable it feels, when it’s alien to him, when it was crafted as a weapon by creatures beyond his comprehension and moulded to him without his consent. The power of it scares him.

He pulls himself out of bed with a groan, then spots the neatly folded pile of black and grey clothes on the floor. They are clearly intended for him, and when he pulls them on they cling to his form, moveable and breathable and warm. _Keith_.

He makes his way gingerly into the main room, every muscle in his body stiff with fatigue, and three faces turn towards him and he feels his heart freeze for a split second as he sees those massive wire framed glasses and wide caramel eyes. 

 _Matt?_ The word is on the edge of his lips, then he sees the freckles, scattered like constellations across that pale skin and he realises.

“You’re awake.” The eager words come from a tall boy with sepia skin, and a wide smile. “Holy shit, you are bigger in real life.”

Shiro flushes, cards a hand through his hair. “Are you cadets, from the Garrison?”

The boy nods furiously, grins widely and strikes a dramatic pose. “I’m Lance. Pilot, fighter class.” He points at his friends in turn. “That’s Hunk, engineer, and Pidge, comm spec.”

“I see.” Shiro says politely. He avoids Lance’s curious gaze. “I’m sorry.” He says haltingly. “I... Excuse me.” The world is spinning around him, and he feels too light, almost floating off the Earth. The gravity was different on the Galra ship, he thinks, suddenly grasping onto a fleeting memory. It was stronger there, every movement took twice the effort and for a long time he felt like he was being crushed to the ground.

He stumbles all the way outside, pulls himself into the fresh air, into the golden brown sand and wide open skies of the desert. His heart pounds hard against his rib cage. He tries to breathe, but suddenly he smells pollen, a light sweet aroma, drifting to him on a cool breeze and he feels like he could float away, pulled apart and scattered in the wind. An odd, displaced sadness clogs his throat. He looks around him, and flowers of all species lie impossibly thick on the ground, vines crawling their way up the side of the shack, a kaleidoscope of petals. He can’t breathe.

He walks until he can’t smell them anymore, until the sadness is swept away by the wind.

He settles himself at the top of a dune, the desert spread out beneath him and the heavens spread above. He digs his feet into the sand like it will stop him floating away, like it will tether him to Earth, and he breathes in deeply, breathes in air that is distinctly _home_ , for the first time in over a year. The homesickness has been constant, a never ceasing ache in the pit of his stomach. The lack of familiarity was exhausting. He had nothing to cling onto, and the constant struggle for his body and his mind had been a never ending fight. 

He thinks of that time, the time that exists in foggy grey patches of memory, the time between _before_ and _after_. He hates it, hates that he can’t remember it, hates that he has to try. He remembers little things, bits and pieces like flashes of shattered crystals. He remembers emotions, grand sweeping overwhelming fear and anger and panic and loss. He remembers Matt’s face, the terror that twisted his expression, the ragged clothes, the—

The memory cuts short and Shiro buries his head in his hands, guilt swirling through him. He has no idea whether Matt is alive, and Katie — Pidge — is sitting in that house, in that room, with a hope alight in her that he can’t stoke, that he has to smother.

“Shiro.” Keith’s voice is soft with familiarity and it’s achingly strange after so long without hearing the real thing. He doesn’t look around yet, can’t bare to look at the face he’s dreamt of for over a year. He can remember that young face, remembers the overpowering desire and love attached to that scowl, that shy smile, every movement that was smooth as silk and strong as steel. But there’s an emptiness, a missing part of him that used to scream out in love. It makes looking around too much to bare. He doesn’t want to taint the fondest memories he has with an emptiness wrought from suffering. He doesn’t want to associate Keith with the contempt borne of his defects.

“I missed the constellations.” Shiro says absently. He can infer logically from this detached feeling that where he was, wherever he was, he couldn’t see the stars. Not these constellations at least. Not the constellations that he grew up watching, that he positioned on his ceiling in luminescent stickers, not the night sky that reminds him of his family, not the stars whose names and positions and paths he’d memorised in the hopes that one day he’d walk among them.

“You were a long way away.” Keith replies, almost like he can read Shiro’s mind. Something aches in Shiro’s chest. He catches the scent of blossoms on the breeze. 

“Those flowers around your house…” Shiro sighs, almost wistfully. “Cyclamen and carnations, heliotropes and hyacinths. How are they growing in this environment?”

“I put a lot into them.” Keith says after a pause. The words seem careful, deliberate. But perhaps Shiro just isn’t any good at reading him anymore.

“I see.” Is all he replies. The silence between them isn’t awkward or stilted, it feels like they have no need for words. Shiro’s mind flashes back to before, to Earth, and to the first time they had kissed, long before the Kerberos mission. He remembers every moment of the kiss, the feeling of Keith’s soft lips against his own, but something feels wrong with the memory. It is empty of context and emotion, and for some reason that devastates Shiro. He swallows roughly, looks down at his hands.

Keith’s footsteps are soft through the sand as he walks up behind Shiro. “It’s good to have you back.” He says, and places his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. The mere touch sends heat flooding through Shiro’s body and he can’t help but look up to meet Keith’s gaze and he can’t help but think, _the man who left you is not the man who returned_.

He unexpectedly realises the sun has risen, and golden light accents Keith’s face. “It’s good to be back.” He says sincerely, and his voice is probably rougher than it should be because Keith’s cold, dark eyes are burning through him, and he’s not sure if it’s better or worse that he _wants_ to feel love.

“So, what happened out there? Where were you?” Keith’s hand slides off his shoulder.

“I wish I could tell you. My head's still pretty scrambled.” He replies honestly, and in that moment he tries again to sort through the muddled mess of his mind. “I was on an alien ship, but somehow I escaped. It's all a blur.” He turns to look at Keith, genuine curiosity flooding his voice. “How did you know to come save me when I crashed?”

“You should come see this.” It almost sounds like disappointment in Keith’s voice, and as he turns and walks away, Shiro can help but feel like he lost something important.

They barely get a moment alone for weeks. The other Paladins are always around them, and with aliens to fight and a universe to save, the fact that you’re ~~not in love~~ dying isn’t high on the list of priorities. 

Keith tries not to think about Shiro. If Shiro has no memories, Keith can see all of history. All the memories he’d suppressed, forgotten, tried not to think about had resurfaced along with Shiro. It had hurt too much, when he thought Shiro was dead. Every happy thought, every treasured time had been like a stab to the chest.

And it’s only worse now he’s alive. Every familiar gesture, every curve of his lips, every crinkle of the scar on his nose sends waves of memories crashing through him. And it hurts. It hurts so badly he wants to tear the thought of Shiro out of his body. There are days, so many aching days where all he wants is the blessing of amnesia. He wants to be like Shiro, unburdened by the remembrance of what they had, whatever they had. But instead he’s forced to relive it, over and over and over, each time with the knowledge that it's gone. This person, this man that he still loves does not love him back. 

The flowers plague him, tear through him with every memory, every longing glance in Shiro’s direction. He tore out his wings of cercis siliquastrum, scattered their magenta petals out the airlock and into the void of space. They left scars, deep and ridged, parallel lines just between his shoulder blades. They itch constantly and every now and then another sprig punches through his skin, leaving trails of blood and plasma down his back. He thanks whichever person decided to make the skin-tight jumpsuit under his armour black. It’s easier to hide the stains.

He’s isolated in space. It’s lonely in space. The person he’s closest to in the universe is lost in his own head, even if his physical shell wanders the same halls as Keith. Of the other paladins, he gets along best with Pidge, they have enough history that they trust each other, know each other, but every spare second of her time is wrapped up in her search for her family and he isn’t selfish enough to pull her away from that. And they’re all wrapped up in each other such that Keith can never quite find his place.

So he fits into the role they give him. He’s the lone wolf, he has anger issues, fights like a demon, doesn’t know how to fit in or get along. He’s instinctive and irrational, and even though every one of these things describe him, it’s confining in the box they put him in.

So he spends every spare second training, fighting harder and faster and stronger. He beats level after level until the programming smashes him to the ground and perennials clog his throat and he limps across the castle to lie deep in Red’s metal guts and let the flowers break through his skin. He makes the floor rusty red with blood.

Then there’s the fight and Zarkon’s cold purple eyes saying, _you fight like a Galra soldier_ , and the decaying wormhole, and Keith is on a dead planet, with a dead lion and all he can think is _Shiro_. 

He tries Red’s controls, gets nothing in response. “You okay, Red?” The silence from her is deafening. “Okay. We'll fix you up. We had a tough battle.” He knows he’s mostly talking to himself, but everything feels wrong without her voice at the back of his mind.

The inbuilt trackers in their gear lead him to Shiro, a little bleeping arrow that seems all too determined to guide him right into the jaws of his biggest downfall. For too long he thinks Shiro is dead. Again. This time round, there is more panic. _He should have done something, shouldn’t have been so reckless. Shouldn’t have let Shiro put himself anywhere near danger._

But he keeps running towards him, the ground harsh beneath his feet, moving closer and closer to what he hopes with every inch of his being is not a dead body. The empty shell of the man he loves.

When Shiro’s voice comes over the comm, blurred with pain and static, but his nonetheless, the universe suddenly seems to start spinning again, and Keith can think again.

“Keith. Keith, I'm here. I'm okay.” And his name on Shiro’s lips almost makes him stumble, because who else could make such simple words sound so beautiful. 

“Shiro.” He smiles. “You made it.”

“It takes more than a glowing alien wound, a fall from the upper atmosphere, and crashing into a hardpan surface, at what I'm guessing is about twenty-five meters per second squared, to get rid of me.” He can imagine the weak grin tugging at Shiro’s lips and the words are so _him_ that Keith can feel sharp buds rip through the skin of his sternum. And Keith doesn’t bother to contradict him, even though _all it could’ve taken was me_. “How are you?”

“Not good.” Keith replies honestly, because it’s getting hard to breathe, petals slipping from his lips. He needs Red. “My lion’s busted.” Then what Shiro said gets past the mess of pain and want in his brain. “Wait, what wound?”

“It’s nothing.” Shiro replies, and Keith can tell he’s lying. Shiro’s groan echoes through the comm.

“Hang on.” He says, like the power of his words alone might be enough to keep Shiro alive until he’s there. “I’m coming.”

And then he’s sitting with the warmth of the fire on his face, and Shiro is so close beside him that blood is running down Keith's back, and all he wants to do is to kiss the pain off his face. Pin him to the ground and kiss him senseless. Hold his face, trace his jawline and run fingers along every curved muscle and raised scar. Pull Shiro's bottom lip between his teeth, grind their hips together. Feel Shiro's breath hot against his neck, whisper _I love you_ like he can remember and like they mean it. And for the first time in almost two years he'd be able to breathe.

“Keith,” Shiro says quietly, and he’s battered, bruised and dusty, pain etched into his face, but he’s still more beautiful than anything Keith has seen in this universe, “if I don’t make it out of here, I want you to lead Voltron.”

Keith’s heart freezes. The words are such a close echo to that first time, the first time he almost lost Shiro that he wants to scream.

Shut up.

_Shut up._

“Stop talking like that.” He says instead. “You’re gonna make it.”

And he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this fic just keeps getting longer. Let me know what you think! And I promise I'm working on a fluffy end. This angst will be resolved.


	4. The Gift of Everything

Shiro can remember what it was like to love Keith, every bittersweet aching moment. Loving Keith was like burning, and now he was only smouldering coals. Loving Keith was as natural and heady as breathing, and now he is left gasping for air, his lungs incapable of performing the task they were designed for.

He wants nothing more than to love Keith again.

Sometimes he thinks about what they did to him, what the Galra took from him. They scarred him, turned his mind against him, took a limb, and all of it hurt less than knowing that they took his ability to love. They tried to take Keith as well, but they failed at that. So he was left with empty memories, the actions without the feeling.

That’s when the bloodlust drowns him, a vicious feedback loop that leaves him trembling, tears tracking down his face, hand lit bright in a fist.

The others never notice, all so wrapped up in each other that he feels more isolated than ever. For the first time in a year he is surrounded by cadets again, by humans again, but he feels alone in his pain. Keith finds him, when he’s like this, and sits with him, the two them huddled in the corners of the castle, lit with a purple glow. Shiro can see it written all over him, how hard it is to be there. And he’s far more selfish than he cares to admit, because as he pulls himself down from that feedback loop, as he traces the purple-lit planes of Keith’s face, he is so glad Keith has given his heart to him. Because he will _never_ give it back.

He refuses. Isn’t he owed that much?

So he sits there, feeling the tips of Keith’s fingers tracing the palm of the worst part of him, and all he can think is _you’re so beautiful. And you’re mine._

And he’ll tell himself that he can’t be smelling lavender.

And when he’s standing there, watching that bright star trapped between the voids of black holes, and he’s watching them spin in that breathtaking destructive dance, he doesn’t choose Keith because of Red. He chooses Keith because if there was anyone in the universe who he’d want at his back, anyone who he’d want to die with, it’d be Keith.

He tries to say it, when they’re there together in the lion, so close that he can see sable hair curling from under Keith’s helmet, a sliver of pale skin, and if he could possibly be as brave as he once was, he would reach out and touch it. He tries to say it then, tries to speak silken words, words that could quantify what he felt. But of course, in the way these things do, it goes wrong.

“I want you to lead Voltron.”

Can’t he see that Shiro is trying to give him everything? Everything that Shiro is, everything that he has, everything that he could be, he is entrusting it to Keith.

But of course he got it wrong.

“I thought you were just delirious with pain.” Keith says, a bitter edge to his voice. “Why would you make me the leader?”

Shiro comes so close right then, words teetering on the edge of his lips. _I want you. I need you. You deserve everything. Let me give you everything._

He doesn’t think this is love.

He scrambles to save it, make it a lesson or advice or encouragement, but he can’t help but feel his heart still when Keith says, “Nothing is going to happen to you,” like he was going to will it into truth.

_This can’t be love._

“I’ve just had a lot on my mind,” Keith glances away.

“I know.” Shiro replies, so tired it hurts, “we all have.”

The revelations at the Blade of Marmora’s base send Shiro’s head spinning. All he wants to do is protect Keith, stand between him and the Galra, never let them touch a hair on his head. He nearly jumps out his skin when Keith is tackled to the ground, rage filling him with chaos.

But of course he lets Keith fight. He can’t say no to Keith, not when the stakes are this high.

And as he watches Keith fight, soldier after soldier, blood staining his bared teeth and sweat dripping from his chin, something inside Shiro cracks, splintering and blossoming. Warmth floods his chest, deep and pure and excruciating. Keith gets more and more weary and as Shiro can see the spark in his eyes harden into stone, he is barely able to repress himself for tearing through every man in the room to get to Keith.

“How long does this go on?” He asks, failing to constrain the bite to his voice.

“Sometimes the greatest challenge is knowing when to stop.” Kolivan replies cryptically, voice stripped bare by the robotics.

“He’ll never quit.” Shiro says, and he knows it. He knows Keith will fight until he can’t anymore, and Shiro cannot stand by to see what that takes.

And when Keith is back by his side, in his arms, listing to one side with exhaustion and injury, but so fully alive, Shiro is swept away with that warmth. It doesn’t matter what blood Keith has running through his veins, doesn’t matter what forces try to tear them apart, this astonishing being is _his_. This man who tamed the Red lion, fought legions of highly trained soldiers, who travelled across the universe without blinking an eye, who stayed with Shiro through everything, tracked him down when everyone else thought he was dead.

This man who was ready to give up his past for the war.

And Shiro is _his_ entirely.

Shiro pulls him aside as soon as they get back to the Castle. “Do you want to talk?” He asks, but Keith knows it’s more than that. He nods, and together they wander deep into the empty halls of the Castle.

“I shouldn’t stay.” Keith says after a time. The words slip out of him of their own accord.

Shiro looks at him with something like astonishment. “This doesn’t change anything, Keith.”

And Keith wants to say, _this changes everything_. But he doesn’t.

“They won’t care.” Shiro says softly. “It doesn’t matter, it’s just blood. You have already proved yourself a thousand times over to every person on this ship.”

Keith smiles, Shiro always seems to know just what to say. Just the right words in just the right order. Keith has never had that talent.

“And you?”

Shiro huffs out a half laugh, hurt. “Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you. I will always trust you.”

“Even if I’m the enemy?”

“You could never be my enemy, Keith.”

The rush of love feels enough to drown him. He would decimate species, slaughter armies if he thought Shiro wanted him to. He would raze whole planets if it would make Shiro smile. He would die a thousand deaths to give Shiro whatever his heart desired. He would burn down the universe without blinking if it would keep Shiro safe.

His love is a destructive, temperamental beast, but it is not blind. This is not Shiro. This is not his Shiro.

But he can still taste nectre and blood, sickly sweet coating his tongue. And he can still feel the itch and tear that tells him everything he needs to know. He’s still being torn apart by the best thing inside of him. He’s still being tortured by the person he cares about most in the universe. He’s still vulnerable to this man, this incredible man, who doesn’t love him.

“Allura is going to hate me.” He murmurs softly, trying to find that ground again, the place that’s safe to stand without the fear of thorns.

“I don’t care.” Shiro replies, and somehow Keith’s breathing eases. He takes in a deep breath, relishing the feeling of the air in his lungs.

 _What is happening?_ He doesn’t want to hope, doesn’t want to take that last step, doesn’t want to open himself up to heartbreak. Again.

“They will care. I’m Galra, Shiro.” He can feel it inside of him, like the roots that tangle through his flesh, the stench of Galra in him.

“You are Keith. You are the Red Paladin. You are my—“ Shiro stops himself, but the words linger between them. Keith stops to look up at Shiro.

“What am I?” He whispers, at the words feel like a rope bridge, flung across the chasm between them.

“I’m so sorry I let them take you from me for so long.” Shiro whispers and Keith can barely speak, barely form coherent thought, but for the first time in over a year, he can _breathe_.

“Don’t say that.” He says softly.

Shiro steps towards him, lays a gentle hand on Keith’s arm. Too many layers lie between them, fabric and inhibitions.

So Keith makes the leap. 

It’s like prying open his chest, fingers wrapped around blood slicked ribs. It’s like there’s a series of cracks and pops as he pulls himself apart. He bares his insides to Shiro, letting the flowers bloom from his intestines, tear their way through his lungs, spill like a cascade of unrequited love onto the ground, blood slicked and sickly sweet, even though he knows he’s stopped blooming. And it’s the most painful and beautiful thing he’s ever done.

“I love you.”

Shiro looks at him with those eyes like voids, and he takes the smallest step towards him, long muscled arms wrapping around Keith’s waist. With the slightest pressure he pulls them together, hips pressed tight against hips. He leans down towards Keith, and there’s something indescribable in his eyes, something like magma, glowing red hot.

“Can I kiss you?” And his voice is deep and soft and rough with uncertainty, and so so Shiro, that Keith doesn’t wait.

Shiro smells like petrichor and metal, has scars like ridges of silver, lips as soft and suffocating as velvety petals.

Keith smells like ichor and leather and pollen, tempers his ire into steel, has lips chapped by wind and peeling like bark, that burn like passion.

They have hurt each other, been torn apart by the world and stitched themselves together with silk of pure will and a needle of sharpened desire. They have nightmares forged of daydreams and remembered pain.

Shiro fights like responsibility, like his weapon is a burden of power that he’s forced to bear for the sake of everyone else. Keith fights like he’s extending his fury through his sword. Shiro’s flight is transportation, Keith’s is an art form.

They both sacrifice everything they have for everyone else. Neither knows how to stop.

But they both know that all they have in this universe is each other. And all they can do is cling as tightly to each other as they can.

And when they finally pull away from each other, Keith’s lips reddened and Shiro’s hair disheveled, they are grinning, smiling like idiots that have just found the elixir of life. And Shiro can only say one thing.

“I love you.”

The smile falls from Keith’s face. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” Shiro says simply, and he shrugs like those three small words are the most obvious truth.

“Again.” Keith whispers.

“I love you more than anything else in the universe and I don’t want to leave you ever again.” Shiro murmurs and he takes two steps towards Keith, inexplicably drawn to him.

Keith closes the gap.

And together they burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so I finally finished this. I'm sorry it took this long, but here we are, resolved as promised and with a dash of fluff at the end. Let me know what you think!


End file.
